The project brings an itinerant exhibition of contemporary art with the title The End of the New that is going to be organized for a year in various Italian towns as well as in Ljubljana and Zagreb throughout the years of 2016-2017.

The exhibition is KAPSULA is part of extended project by Hiša kulture v Pivki (House of culture in Pivka).

The title Vojna in mi(r) is a word pun in Slovene language and translates into two meanings that can’t be written together in the same way in English: War and Us/War and Peace. As the title suggests, the idea for the project refers to Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace, which talks about Russian society during the Napoleonic wars. Similarly, the project War and Us/War and Peace addresses the global problems of war and their impact on social life in the local environment, i.e. in Slovenia. The time frame of the project is determined by the impact of wars on the generation of 1975-95. This influence starts with World War II through the lives of our parents and grandparents and extends to the Cold War and the wars that followed the disintegration of Yugoslavia, to the wars in the Middle East today. The main theme of the project is a critical look at the impact of these wars on the social life in our country, from the standpoint of – as in Tolstoy’s novel – opposing to war and advocating of peace.

Town Hall Arts has partnered with Bath Spa University’s MA Curatorial Practice students Nina Jesih from Slovenia and Amy Navarrete from Colombia. They were invited to create an exhibition of artists’ ﬁlms and began their search in their home countries.

Building on previous collaborations and through an open invitation they expanded the selection to include nine international artists who work with the medium of video. The presented works do not have an overt narrative but reveal a contemporary undertone. Each piece in its own way deals with the question of how people interact with their daily existence and plays on the audience’s emotions and concerns.

The art works are located within the main gallery and throughout the Town Hall building. We encourage you to investigate the architecture’s hidden areas and be confronted by exploitations of reality through the artists’ eyes.

With the excuse of safeguarding its citizens and property, Slovenia is increasingly becoming a police state. The power of the repressive apparatus has been growing since the 2012/13 protests. In 2015 and 2016, the state was responsible for the refugee crisis turning into a humanitarian tragedy. The state has given the army police powers, while the police recently acquired a new water cannon, the use of stun guns is being discussed, and city wardens have increasing authority to take action. The new law against so-called illegal aliens will not only go against the constitution, but numerous international resolutions and conventions as well. After the horrors of the Second World War, the United Nations proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, recognizing the inherent dignity and equal and inalienable rights of all people. Slovenia now intends to violate this. Moreover, as a consequence of also Slovenian actions the refugees caught on the cut-off Balkan Route are now fighting for survival under inhuman conditions. Overall, security is becoming the universal excuse given by the authorities for consolidating their power and increasing their repression, while human lives and destinies are once again being divided into more and less valuable ones.

In the entrance lobby of Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, +MSUM, a regular rubric is introduced that allows artists to comment, in a variety of media, formats, and ways of expression, on certain crucial moments and developments in the contemporary political landscape worldwide as they are reflected locally.